


A Cumbersome And Heavy Body

by WhumpTown



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner Needs a Hug, Cancer Arc, Gen, Hiding Medical Issues, Hotch has cancer, Hurt Aaron Hotchner, Protective Emily Prentiss, Sick Aaron Hotchner, The team takes care of Hotch, i am so sorry for this in advance, listen, the team... doesn't know what to do, there's just like no way it's not going to be sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27910141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhumpTown/pseuds/WhumpTown
Summary: Stubborn until the very end, Aaron Hotchner isn't going to go down without a fight. It's just getting hard to tell the difference between fighting them and fighting the cancer.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & David Rossi, Aaron Hotchner & Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner & Emily Prentiss, Aaron Hotchner & Jack Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner & Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Aaron Hotchner
Comments: 14
Kudos: 52





	1. Tired Of This Body

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly, I have no words to really defend myself. I... just... yeah. So, uhm, enjoy this. I really hope you enjoy this. It took me weeks and I've still got more to go.

_**I've grown tired of this body  
Cumbersome and heavy  
Tired of this body  
Fall apart without me** _

_“I understand you’re here with concerns of a mass you found—”_

He was shaving. The mirror fogged from his shower and the room heavy with steam. Leisurely, he’d wasted time getting ready. That particular morning, he’d gotten up before his alarm and he was happy for the distraction of the near-boiling water pouring over his back while the cold tile bites into his shoulder. An easy stress-reliever before the day fully starts. 

Dragging a cool rag over his face he’d caught sight of a slightly swollen place on his chest. He’d dropped the rag in the sink and gently probed the area. He’d expected the sting of a bruise, not a knot of hard lumps. 

It wasn’t a bruise. 

_“I regret to inform you—”_

He hadn’t even known there were lymph nodes in the chest. 

“Can you take your shirt off for me, sir?” 

There’s a whole staff of people fluttering and dodging his eyes. A blur of motion as they work around him. Of them all, Hotch has already developed a soft spot for. Dr. Fitz and the glasses that are too big for his face despite his attempts to make them fit his face. There are rubber bands wrapped around the earpieces to push them tighter around his head and a piece of tape holding one of the lenses in. It’s strangely endearing. 

No matter how many times Hotch tells Dr. Fitz that Aaron works just fine, he still nervously throws in the courtesy. He’s just like Reid and it’s that thought that makes him both comfortable and so unbearably alone. 

With a nod, Hotch tugs his shirt out from where it’s tucked into his pants. The cold air hits his bare chest and he holds his breath for a moment, shivering slightly before he takes control once again. Foyet’s scars are on broad display for the whole room but, to their credit, none of them blink. They’re not here to dissect the scars covering his body or take stock of the weight he’s put on. 

He just goes where he’s pulled. If he flinches when they touch him, no one comments. It’s for the better, mostly. 

“The tattoo is going to guide the external beam radiation at your tumor,” Dr. Fitz explains once again. His hands tremble slightly as they hold the little needle in his hands. “It’s just three dots.” 

Hotch nods, his mouth a little too dry. This whole process a little too much. He nods his understanding, fists clenched at his side to force himself to show no outward reaction. It doesn’t bother him as much as it should those dots are going to be with him forever. His first and last tattoo. 

Forcing a steadying breath, he glues his eyes to the ceiling. It stings but it’s not unbearable. The needle digs into his chest, pushing the ink in. It’s the second and third dot that get him. His skin is getting hot, sore enough to make him gunt as the last one is placed. 

“Not nearly as fun as a normal tattoo,” one of the other doctor’s observes. Hotch, blinking back tears, looks over at his other doctor. A woman whom he’d never have figured the “tattoo” type. His brain is a little preoccupied, worn down. He’ll get over not profiling her very well, he just might not forgive himself for the slip-up.

Hotch just… grunts. Not a real answer but the easiest. 

He’s offered a hand up but he doesn’t take it. Shoulders sore and arms weak, he pushes himself up. Leaning to the side when his head starts to pound, his mouth really, really dry.

“Alright—” a cold gloved finds his shoulder. “You’re just panicking,” he’s reassured. “You need to breathe. In through your nose and out through your mouth.” The hand squeezes his shoulder but he keeps his eyes squeezed shut. It feels like he’s going to pass out. But… he doesn’t. He breathes as instructed and slowly, the room calms back down.

As he peels his eyes open, chest tight and hands trembling, he finds the room still every bit as busy as it was before his little fit. The world really doesn’t stop. 

“Are you sure—,” Dr. Fitz twists and worries his hands. Obviously, he’s worked himself up too. Probably blaming himself for Hotch’s reaction. He should have let him take a break or warned him a little better. “Most people find it helpful to have someone here,” Dr. Fitz observes. “Do you— Do you want to call someone?”

His eyes drop to the floor, his mind-- _Haley_. She would be here. Cracking jokes and poking at his side. Things used to be so much easier with her around. There was this magic about her, a drug her presence doped him up. She would light the room up and hold his hand. She’s not here, though. She’s dead and he’s having a hard time convincing himself this isn’t some sort of penance. 

Snuffing out a light like her, it was bound to have its consequences.

They’ve marked him and with his advanced stage, he’s got an aggressive treatment plan, and the radiation starts tomorrow. So, no. No, he doesn't want to call anyone. He just wants to serve his time. Besides, who would he call? 

JJ? With two children of her own and a painfully busy schedule.

Reid? His mother occupies his mind as is. 

Morgan? He’s grappling with a relationship with Savannah, attempting to salvage all of the complex things life has thrown at him.

Dave? Hasn’t he already lost a child? The last thing he needs is to sit here for any given amount of time and watch this. 

And he’d never, never put Garcia through this. 

“No,” he rasps, laying back down. “I’m okay.”

He closes his eyes and when a single hot tear runs down his cheek, he doesn’t wipe it away. I’m okay. 

_I’m okay._

There aren't immediate side effects and he’s not sure if that’s a relief or worse. He’s anxious, nearly sick with nerves. Would it not be simpler to just get sick already? To throw up or get sore or just— _anything_.

The machine hurts his ears. Fifteen minutes of lying perfectly still gets hard after about two minutes. The whole process exacerbated by the way the low hum of the machine makes his head feel like someone’s digging at his skull with an icepick through his ear. 

He’s assured he shouldn’t start feeling any symptoms for a few days. Likely not until the second week of treatments. 

It takes five days for a stitch in his side to take his breath for a moment, doubling over as he struggles to breathe for a moment. Chest tight and head fogged. They just add another pill bottle to the other whole collection he’s accumulated on his nightstand. 

It feels like there’s an elephant sitting on his chest. A hand gripping a fist full of his hair and dunking his head back under the water. Ties binding his wrist to the bed. A knife buried in his side. 

It feels like the ground he’s standing on is rumbling, shifting beneath his feet and at any given moment it’s going to pitch him forward. A free fall and he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to land on his feet. 

He’s staring at the ceiling. Fists gripping the sheets as his stomach twists and churns. Swallowing around the uncomfortable burn in his throat, he turns his head to the side. Watching the movements just outside his bedroom window. Jack’s outside, kicking his soccer ball, and waiting for Daddy to come to join him. Hotch, will have to join him sooner rather than later. Even with the yard fenced in, anything could happen out there.

Funny. Just a few weeks ago, anything could have been blown under the rug with “at least it’s not cancer”. Now he’s plotting his will out in his head, making sure he covers every little thing. Who will lead the team? Where will Jack go? Can Jessica handle arrangements and should he start preparing the comfort letters now? 

In the face of it all, he’d thought he could accept this. Life goes on. Things happen. He doesn’t want to die. All of those poems, the books, and the lies. _“Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep.”_ Well, that’s right shit, in his opinion. What comes next? Not light. Not hope. His body will succumb to cancer leaving behind the carnage of his actions. 

Hodgkin's Lymphoma… 

He’d known, in that morbid way his thoughts tend to twist, that he shouldn’t get his hopes up. That it would be silly for the doctor to smile, sympathetic to his plight, and advise him to talk to his therapist about this new progression of paranoia. For a pat on the back. Instead, he got the cold examination table under his back, and the nurse giving his trembling hand a squeeze as the needle had plunged into his chest. 

It’s all been a haze since that phone call. Since the confirmation. Now he’s got more blood tests scheduled for Monday. That’s what his life is now. Radiation for fifteen minutes for four days a week. On the fifth day, he gets blood work drawn. They check for enzymes and cells. He doesn’t really care to understand.

He should. Don’t mistake the careless, numb ache thinking about all this gives him for complete inattention to detail. It’s just a little much for one person. 

Hotch finds himself wondering what Reid would tell him about the whole process. Statics that would knock the wind from his lungs and odds that would make him feel just a little better. That he’s too old and too stressed out. That radiation aimed at his chest can harden his arteries and increase his already high chances of a heart attack. That he should have seen this coming-- his father died at 47. Lung cancer. A heart attack.

He should have seen it coming.

“Daddy?”

He has to lean into his nightstand as the ground warps beneath his feet. “I’m coming,” he manages, closing his eyes and blindly hoping that his door is shut and Jack can’t see him. He wishes he’d smoked more. Indulged in Dave’s cigars. Gone drinking with Derek. Danced like Penelope. Fuck, smiled more.

He didn’t even know there were lymph nodes in the chest. He’d gone to law school. Spent his early adulthood learning to read complex course material and how to cry softly in a room with another person less than five feet from him. Maybe he should have studied Biology… but then he’d just have to come to terms with the fact that this whole mess was bound to happen. Predisposed. Genetic and environmental.

_His_ fault. 

\--------------------------------

Six in the morning is not a typical time to be fielding calls from concerned police officials. “He—Hello?” Which, now that phone is tucked under his chin, and the call answered, he realizes that he should have checked the caller ID. As stated, is it six in the morning and he doubts anyone too important is calling him at this hour. 

Unless, of course, his luck has finally run out and yet another political disaster has occurred. Leaving him to clean the wreck. 

The other end makes a strange noise before he’s greeted with, “--finally! I was almost worried you wouldn’t answer!”

Oh.

Emily.

“Morning,” he greets, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He’s a little too grumpy for this right now but she’s obviously called for a reason, her happiness seeping into tone, and he’s not going to purposely ruin that. How many hours ahead is London, again? Why is she awake?

“I was worried,” she admits. He can hear her working, the drag of her pen across paper, and the shift of the leather chair she’s sitting in. Even her keyboard clicking away as she multi-tasks. “Your last letter was nearly two weeks ago. Is everything good at home?”

Home. He smirks, she’s been overseas now for several years. Yet, she still refers to Virginia as home. The thought makes him shake his head. He’d never draw the conclusion out loud to her but he can imagine that little slip-up is one of the reasons that her on-again-off-again boyfriend Michael grows frustrated with her. It’s not her fault. It’s an understandable mistake but it certainly reflects a certain tone for her affections of London. 

Her preferences. 

“They’re fine,” he answers, evenly. “Jack’s doing well in school. Dave’s stopped hounding me about potential love suitors.” He pauses to splash water across his mouth, preparing to wash his face. “Garcia enjoyed last month’s tea flavor, what was it-- raspberry?” 

He places his phone on speaker and sets it on the shelf above his sink. Ducking his head, he listens to her while he washes his face. Going about the habitual process of shaving. A comforting thing he’s always done. He’s got no preference when it comes to facial hair. A beard is just as easy as a clean face. It’s about shaving. It’s soothing. It’s one of the few things that’s remained constant in his life.

She’s talking-- he thinks about how the weather in London has hit a point in the season that she doesn’t particularly like. Raining and cold. That she wants to come home but she isn’t sure she should. Will she really be able to tear herself away from the Virginia weather? From them?

He’s half-way done shaving when his eyes drift to his shirtless chest. 

He wonders how many times he shaved, how many mornings did he wake up before he realized-- before he saw the tumor or the lump or mass or whatever the hell the medical term is. He lowers his head, sighing in defeat but mostly anger. How’d he let it get to this?

“Anyways,” she sighs. Sounding every bit as tired as he feels. “How is home? How are you?”

He looks at himself in the mirror. His head is absent of reason. No logic or forethought. 

“I have cancer.” 

\--------------------------------  
Everything about Aaron Hotchner is traditional and simplistic. It’s not a bad thing. In the years that she's known him, she’s grown fond of that. It makes him predictable and reliable. Something that happens infrequently in people the older that she gets. A part of her does feel wrong for clinging to that, to him, but she cherishes his friendship. Through the ups and downs. 

Their means of communication are letters. Once a week she can expect to find two to three pages of neatly written updates on her family across the pond. He’ll ramble about anything in those letters and that’s what she enjoys about them the most. There is no hesitation to tell her what he thinks. In those letters, she can find Aaron. Incredible soft, thoughtful Aaron. 

It’s been two weeks since he’s sent a letter. Not to sound clingy but she’s kind of hurt. More so, she’s nervous to find out what’s taking up so much of his time. He’s routine with his responses. Almost every Thursday night she can curl up with his newest letter and a glass of wine and read about the BAUs newest adventure. It’s always a bonus when throws in his subtle little “I” statements. I miss you’s come rare but when they do happen it’s nice. 

Sighing, she caves. It’s Friday, she hasn’t heard from him in two weeks, and she misses him. By the time she has his contact picture pulled up and the ring tone dialing-- his goofy picture from his badge grinning at her-- she realizes that her eleven am is his six am. Just as she’s starting to think he won’t answer it goes through.

“H--Hello?” he sounds like shit. Over the course of the last year, she’s managed to forget what he sounds like. His voice is startlingly deep which does surprise her just a little. 

“Finally!” she mumbles. “I was worried you wouldn’t answer!” 

He yawns and it makes her smile. “Morning,” he grumbles and she can hear him scratching tiredly at his face. She feels guilty for waking him up for only a moment. That is until she remembers he gets up at six. So it’s likely she called right after his alarm clock went off. 

Tucking her phone between chin and shoulder, she turns her computer on. Settling in behind her desk and getting to work. “I was worried,” she tells him. Not sure if she’s meaning to sound mad at him for not sending his “everyone’s alive and well” letter or mad that she doesn’t know how he is. He’s thrown her off her routine. “Your last letter was nearly two weeks ago. Is everything good at home?”

Her worry bleeds into the statement but he’s too tired to feed it or make fun of it. 

She can hear him huff softly, an almost laugh. 

“They’re fine,” he answers softly. His voice is drowsy, “Jack’s doing well in school. Dave’s stopped hounding me about potential love suitors.” She hears the tap run, he pauses, and she can hear him splashing water on his face. “Garcia enjoyed last month’s tea flavor, what was it-- raspberry?” 

She smirks, it was raspberry. Although, she doubts Garcia liked it as much as he says. She’s not a huge raspberry fan. Besides, Emily had sent that tea with one specific tea drinker in mind: him. The thing about Hotch is, he’s traditional, but he’s also complicated. That’s just Hotch for _“I enjoyed the tea you sent”_. 

Really, she’d just wanted him to be introduced to more teas than his just his simple black tea. Be more creative. Have some fun. 

“I’m glad Garcia liked the tea,” she says with a smirk. “She’s been texting me all week.” Pictures, texts, and a few Snapchat. Emily doesn’t entirely know how to use Snapchat yet but she’s getting the hang of it. “You guys being grounded is relaxing, I’m sure, but that woman’s got way too much time on her hands.” Emily shakes her head at the thought. Lovingly, of course. 

“Anyways,” she runs a hand over her face and she lets out a sigh. “How is home? How are you?”

There’s a long pause on his end. All his busy movements coming to a halt. It makes her heart pick up its pace, her gut twisting. Suddenly, that knee-jerk thought, that stupid thought that something might be wrong feels true. She’s just about to say his name when his voice cuts through. 

“I have cancer.” 

Her first reaction is oh. At least she was right. 

That is immediately followed by-- _oh fuck_.

“Are you…” she swallows thickly, work forgotten. “Have--” Where does she even begin? 

He clears his throat, “Hodgkin's Lymphoma.” He answers without her actually having to ask. It feels to get it off his chest, literally. To tell someone. “I guess--” he makes a choked sound like the shock of this news is setting in again. “They have to put, uhm, ink to locate the right place. So, I… I have a tattoo of sorts now.”

She laughs a half-pained sound. “I’m sure Morgan doesn’t consider it to be a tattoo,” she manages around the tightness of her throat. She cringes at the thought, ink and a needle just digging into his flesh. Cancer invading his body. 

He doesn’t say anything for a moment but when he does, she understands the silence. 

“I haven’t told them.”

As much as she wants to be mad at him, she shouldn’t really expect anything different. He’s painfully shy and private. God knows if she hadn’t found him half-dead in the hospital after Foyet, he’d have gone as long as possible without telling them. He certainly wouldn’t have told them while still hospitalized.

It’s the same lack of forethought that goes through them, a moment of blindness. He’d felt the weight of restraints pulling his limbs down when the admissions had left his lips. She feels only conviction, “I’m coming home.” 

It catches him entirely off guard. 

She winces when he starts coughing. His first symptom since starting radiation. It’s a horrible sounding dry cough that makes her lungs ache just to hear. 

The coughs fold him over, the force at which they leave his mouth is painful. What is it that makes coughing so painful? That’s never made much sense. It’s just air, right? 

“Hotch?”

He rubs at his sternum, trying to externally soothe the muscles. “I’m okay,” he chokes. Shakily, his right-hand bears his weight as his left turns the faucet on. With his palm, he manages to sip a few mouthfuls of water. It just doesn’t stop the coughing. “I’m okay.” 

She highly doubts that. There’s not a single thing about what she just heard that sounds “okay” by anyone standards-- certainly not his. “Are you going to work like this?” she asks. It’s hard to believe he’d allow himself to be seen in any state that isn’t tip-top shape. On that note, she also knows that way too good at putting on a show, and, for profilers, the team sucks at making that distinction. 

The anger that evokes in him is undue. Admittedly, he overreacts. “I said I’m fine,” he barks. “I don’t need you checking in on me, Prentiss. I don’t need you here, too!” To watch. It’s bad enough, okay? That he’s going to have to tell his six-year-old son that he’s dying. Each morning a little more than the last and some days feel like he’s already half-lowered into the ground. 

And the others. Reid and those sad eyes. The way Morgan won’t be able to look at him, just avert his gaze and storm out of the room. Dave’s crushing hug and JJ’s silent tears. Garcia… He can only imagine the raging in-betweens of what the news will do to her. Stress baking cookies he won’t be able to stomach. Knitting him hats, sweaters, and blankets with feverish vigor that he won’t be able to escape. 

He could use one of Garcia’s love knitted blankets right about now. 

Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he relaxes his tight grip on the sink. Knuckles paled and fingers aching. 

“Sorry,” Emily finally manages after the long moments of silence. 

Hotch hangs his head, biting his lip hard to stop the flow of emotions trying to work their way up. “No,” he rasps, thickly. He sniffles, scoffing when he rubs his eyes with the back of his wrist, finding tears. “That was… inexcusable. I’m so sorry,” he leans down, body in half as he rests his forehead against the cool porcelain of the sink. 

This doesn’t even feel like his body anymore. 

“Aaron?”

There are tears streaming down his face, he’s too tired to fight them off. “Hmm?”

“I’ll see you soon.”

He hums in agreeance, unable to trust his voice. 

“Take it easy, okay? I love you.”

The line dies before he can hasten out a reply. 

\--------------------------------

She’s been waiting on a reason to leave London for longer than she’s willing to admit. 

Her dying friend proves to be reason enough.

Clyde has obvious mixed feelings but he can’t hold her back. He and Hotch had gotten set on the wrong foot. The rivalry between the two men is childish but endearing. Almost nothing has made her feel as loved as the proud smiles they both wear when she greets them. Clyde overwhelmingly pleased he’d won her back to London and Hotch smug she’ll travel hours to come to see him (she hadn’t done that for Clyde).

Almost nothing beats that. 

“Emily!”

Her eyes are scanning the crowd before her, searching for her mismatched ragtag family. Sore thumbs, bobbing up and down in the crowd, they wave her to them. She notices he’s not there immediately. 

“Princess,” Morgan sighs her name into her hair and she turns her face into his shoulder. Drawing in the strength she can feel wavering with a new wave of anxiety washing over her. It helps that they’re here. Derek’s arms wrapped around her after what feels like a lifetime away. 

It’s only taken her three decades but she’s found her family and she’s not letting anything drag her away this time. 

Garcia pushes at Morgan, causing a choked laugh out of them all. “Stop hogging all the Emily-lovings!” 

Morgan smirks, trying to hide the relief swelling in his eyes like tears. He gets one more good look of her, eyes combing over her before parting with a sad smile. Relieved. 

There’s a blur of motion. She’s pulled to each of them. 

Garcia hugs like she’s trying to crush ribs and Emily lets her. 

Hugging Dave brings tears to her eyes. Fuck, she’s missed them. 

“Don’t make me chase you,” Emily threatens when she spots Reid near the edge. Pulling him close she rests her head against his shoulder, happy when he squeezes her back. “I’ve missed you, boy wonder.”Her genius. Just as scrawny as when she left him. She doesn’t want to do that again anytime soon. 

Dave claps his hands together, grabbing one of the three bags she’d dropped. “Let’s get lunch, kiddos. We can talk about London.” He winks at Emily and she knows that this is going to spin into a conversation about potential love interests. She hasn’t had love on the brain in a while. 

London… not everything she wishes it was. Cold and rainy. Relentlessly. 

For the first month, she was over there, all she wanted was to come home. She just kept waiting for the rain to ease up. Then there should be that wet, hot humidity that clings to everything. She’d hated that before but now she’d just give anything to have it. For Reid to drag her out for coffee and the sun to bring out the chipper inflection in Garcia’s voice. 

How the sun looked on Jack and Henry’s little head when she’d run around the park with them.

Fuck London, she’s just glad to be home. 

“So,” she’s allowed them their fill of questions. Things about INTERPOL and if she’s still leaning heavily on take out food or if she’s managed even the faintest bit of finesse concerning cooking (she hasn’t). Leaning onto her elbows, she asks the question that’s been bugging her for hours. “Where’s Hotch?”

Dave leans back in his chair and JJ’s the first to crack. Of course, her poker face just isn’t that great. Her eyes move to Dave, concern written across her face. They might not know but it’s not that hard to figure out they know something isn’t right. 

Reid shifts uncomfortably, averting his eyes, and focus. 

“Your guess is as good as ours,” Dave informs her. He settles back in his chair, arms crossing on his chest. “He’s…” he sighs tiredly. For a moment he just shakes his head. Rubbing a hand over the coarse hair on his face and then rubbing at his eyes. “He’s Aaron,” Dave mumbles. “Complicated and… reserved.” He looks at her now, zeroed in on just her. Just them. 

Her heart races at just the thought of them knowing. 

JJ clears her throat. She distracts her worry with rubbing her nail at the glass. “He says he’s at meetings,” she tells Emily. “Says--” she shakes her head, flustered. Upset. Pulling in a breath, she shakes softly as it comes in. “Every day, he sends me an update email. Just a list of things he expects to get done for the day or places he might be.” JJ tucks a strand of her hair back from her face. “Our jobs circle around each other, a lot. It makes my life easier if I can find him without running all over the place.”

Morgan turns his head, away from the conversation. Wishing to be uninvolved but unable to escape. 

“He’s lying,” JJ concludes. She worries her lip with her teeth. “His lists are…” her eyebrows furrow as she struggles to say exactly what she means. “Last week,” she says with a nod, having come up with her perfect example. “He said he’d be in a meeting. Didn’t tell me where, he _always_ tells me where.” Her eyes scan over the table, looking for more. “Something’s wrong and he won’t tell us.”

Morgan huffs, shifted now so that his arms are wrapped tightly around himself. His legs crossed, even. Distant. “I don’t see why we don’t just let him be.” His tone betrays what he’s really feeling. That anger and the vulnerability. His words are reflexive. He’s always pushed away when things get tough. 

Emily wants to rise to his defense or to say anything but she can’t. 

“Reid went into his office yesterday--”

Reid flinches. The memory or the feeling, he draws himself in. Shielding himself from whatever is being said. 

Garcia looks down at her lap. 

“He was asleep at his desk,” Dave finishes, despite seeing just how uncomfortable Garcia and Reid look. “Out like a-- Asleep like he hadn’t rested in a while. It took-- I had to shake him awake. He was warm to the touch and shaking.” Dave looks down to the table. “Shaking. He was weak and I’d known,” he looks up, frowning sadly. “I’d known something was wrong before but whatever is, we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.” 

The bottom of it… God, they’re going to be devastated. 

Lunch brightens. It’s forced to when the conversation shifts to the children. To Henry starting fourth grade and Jack’s in middle school now. Since when did those babies grow up? 

Sooner than maybe she’s ready for it, she has to leave them. She’s too tired, too jet-lagged. 

And maybe… Maybe she’s ready to bother Hotch. To reacquaint herself with his grumpy, silent nature. Isn’t it silly to think she’d hated him once?

Now she knows where his house keys are hidden. 

The key hits the lock and she realizes how this might not be as great of a plan as she had planned it to be. “Hotch,” she calls into the dark. She peaks around, hoping if he’s home he’s not on edge. She’s seen him hypervigilant, she knows this is an awful plan. Even calling ahead might not have been enough. So, it’s more than brave for her to just come barging in. 

She puts her back near the coat rack, still hunched into herself in case he comes barreling around the corner. He doesn’t. “Aaron?” His car is out front, despite the darkness of the room suggesting the house is empty. The blinds are drawn shut, blocking all-natural light into the house. The air is cool. “Aaron if you’re here please, please don’t shoot me.”

Shutting the door behind her, she progresses into the living room. The creaking of floorboards draws her attention to the other side of the house and she spots him.

He comes around the corner of the hall, from the direction of his room. Tired eyes move up to find her, his lip quirks into half a smile. “Emily,” he greets under his breath. He’d heard the door open but the binds weighing his wrist and ankles to the bed had been too much for him to lift. Pained and slowed, he’d made his way to figure out who was home. 

Certain it’s not Jack, he should have had a little more trepidation about coming out here to investigate. 

She approaches him slowly, soaking in every line and angle of his body. The way he’s favoring his right side is a new thing but the crescent moons under his eyes are a comforting familiarity. Pulling in a breath, she drags her eyes all the way up to him. He’s lost some weight and it just makes his cheekbones that much more hauntingly sharp. It draws attention to the scars on his face, thin and aged. 

With a smile, she shakes her head at him. “Just as ugly as when I left,” she informs him. 

He smiles tiredly, sighing at her playful taunt. It makes the hug she pulls him into relieving. The aches and chills he’s felt all day lessen as she wraps her arms around him. Something about the way her hand cups the back of his neck while the other rubs his up along his spine. 

She’s standing on the tips of her toes, stretching to get to him. He leans down into her, closing his eyes. She just holds him that much closer. Against her, she can feel the beating of his heart. The way his nerves had amped his heart rate up and now, as the beat slows, the way he calms under her touch. 

“How are you?” she asks quietly. They pull apart and she feels the absence of his warmth immediately. 

He pulls in a weak breath, one he lets out a strangled cough. Shakes his head and offers a shrug. “I’m okay,” he assures her. 

She doesn’t fail to notice how his right hand shakily reaches out to steady him against the wall. They’ve never agreed on the definition of okay and, so, it’s not that surprising they wouldn’t now. 

Burying a cough into the elbow of his arm, he starts to tremble. His breathing takes a heavy quality as he stands there. It takes only a moment for him to draw himself up to his full height, swallowing down against the pain and forcing his body to bend to his will. If she didn’t know better, nothing would look wrong at all. 

“Can I get you anything,” he asks, clenching his teeth to keep steady despite how exhausted he feels. “How long are you staying?” He knows she won’t actually answer that first question, so he steps by her and lets her follow him into the kitchen. Hyper-aware of the way he moves his body. Trying to look normal instead of stiff. 

She follows him, watching for clues in the slips of his armor. One of the many benefits of having known him so long and knowing him well is that he can’t get much past her. “I’m staying for as long as I’m welcome,” she replies. It’s better than the truth, that she’s staying until he’s better. 

He appreciates her choice of wording even if the truth is still there underneath it all. Leaving him the burden of the situation, which is considerably worse. 

He sticks with a simple hum of understanding, knowing she’ll understand it as such. “Staying where,” he asks. Suspecting he already knows the answer. “Here?” He fills two glasses with water, desperate to soothe his dry mouth. Turning to her, he offers the first glass. 

She accepts the glass without comment. “I didn’t think about where,” she lies, smirking over the glass rim at him. He shakes his head but doesn't comment. “Here would be good though.” She looks up at him and he shakes his head with a smile. “It would!” she defends. “I know you miss me and I could help around with Jack. If you won’t admit to it, I know he will.” Her smile twists mischievously, “besides, he’s my favorite Hotchner and I’ll make time to spend with him regardless of where I stay.”

He shakes his head but he’s already formulating how to move the guest room around to accommodate her. There’s not much in there. A bed with some regular looking sheets and two or three boxes of random things. 

Putting her glass down on the counter she sighs. “We don’t need to worry about that right now.” Nodding her head back towards the hall she says, “you look miserable. Go to bed.”

He realizes that while she was talking he’s slowly started leaning more and more on the counter. Accumulating a lean to ease the aches wracking his body. She’s right. He looks miserable because he is. He’s exhausted. 

“Do you need to take any medication?” 

He shakes his head, not letting it bother him when she tucks herself against his side. Allowing him to lean into her. He doesn't but the warmth her body brings is pleasant enough to keep him going.   
He took everything he needed this morning. The medicine for the radiation rash he’s developed across his chest, the preventative pills for the fibrosis that might build in his lungs because of the radiation, and a whole other list of things he can’t really remember. He just has the bottles on his nightstand and knows that most require two dosages. 

His bed is warm and soft, his eyes closing against his will. Logically, he knows he shouldn’t let her see him like this. This is his battle and he doesn’t want to burden anyone else with it. There’s a comfort in sharing, though. Rather it be the brush of her fingers on his forehead, pushing back his crazy or the kiss she presses to his temple before whispering “get some sleep, Hotch”.

And, honestly, he’s tired of being alone. 

“Emily?”

She turns in the doorway.

“Thank you.”

Someone has to be here. She wants to be here. “You’d do the same for me.” 

\--------------------------------

Legs crossed, hair pulled into a half-assed knot atop her head she watches him curiously. He’s up an hour later than she’d expected. No coffee to go along with the egg he has for breakfast. Between them, they have an entire morning spent without nearly a word. Just a simple, _“do you want an egg?”_

He gets ready but not for work.

“What’re you doing?” 

She gets ready too. For what, she’s not sure, but she’s interested none-the-less. Even if she thinks she knows the answer. It’s very interesting, she thinks, to step into the living room and find him staring dumbly back at her. No, not interesting. It’s fun. 

Stepping around him, she pulls her coat off the rack. “Isn’t it obvious,” she asks, slipping her feet into the boots. “I’m coming with you.”

Flannel and jeans aren’t his typical go to but it’s a relaxed look. One she finds she doesn't hate.

He crosses his arms on his chest, eyebrows furrowed and a stern frown in place. Startlingly in control for a man she watched choke down half an egg before calling it quits. He hadn’t even had coffee. Now he shifts his weight, left to right. “Emily this isn’t--” he just stands with his mouth open. After a moment he shakes his head. “You don’t want to come.”

So it is treatment. 

She pulls her jacket tight around her shoulders and without comment pulls his down too, offering it to him. 

He takes it with a sigh, shaking his head, but pulling the sleeves over his flannel. With a sigh, he grabs his keys off the counter. He points a finger at her, looking every bit the father scolding a troublemaking child. “You’re not coming inside the hospital. It’ll be an hour. You’ll drive someplace else. I’ll text you when it’s done.”

She smirks, pleased she’s won this round. Placing two fingers to her temple, she gives him a mocking salute. “Aye-aye captain!” Today, she won’t push. He’s come this far, weeks into his therapy. If he needs some time, then he needs time. Just so long as he knows she’s here now. 

Leaving him is harder than she anticipated. 

She takes his seat, half-listening as he stands at the door. 

“There an outlet about five minutes North,” he says. He watches her move the seat around. Trying to drag the seat closer to the steering wheel so she can actually reach the pedals. “It’ll give you something to do. There’s a bookshop up there too. I-- I take Jack there.” He runs a hand over his hair. “A coffee shop and a smoothie stand and--”

She catches sight of the grey through his hair. Looking away, she clenches her jaw. Worry the edge of the steering wheel. “Aaron,” she finally stops him. “I can take care of myself for an hour. I’m a big girl.” 

He shakes his head, ducking to so she can’t see the blush creep up his cheek. “Right,” he manages. “I’ll be back in an hour.” 

She nods, “an hour.” She waits until she can’t see him. Those doors closing behind him. Swallowing him whole. It’s just an hour. 

She was gone for an entire year. More than that really. Years. What are years to a single hour?

The coffee shop is quant. She can imagine him here. Tucked away within the stacks of books. Reid would like it here. The covers are old but, she thinks with a smile, he’d find something, not to date. Seeking a classic and turning away when it’s not in its original translation. That’s where Garcia has always been his balance. She’d pull him from a rant and sit him down with a cup of tea. 

How had Emily ever left them? 

Her hands tremble as she runs a finger over those old book backs. Mostly, she wonders what Hotch must be thinking. Heaven or hell. If all the work they’ve put into this job will account for anything at all in the end. 

If it’ll hurt. 

“I brought you a smoothie!” She’s got his sunglasses on when she pulls up. Not even offering to get out of the driver’s side. 

He’s hurting more than he cares to admit. Tired and the rash on his burns. Seeing her pull up, he’s glad she doesn’t do more than hook her finger into the sunglasses and peer over their edge at him. Climbing into the car he takes one look at the smoothie and shakes his head. It’s dark green and even if he were hungry he’s sure that isn’t very good. “No thank you,” he mumbles, leaning back into the seat. He tilts his head against the rest. 

She’s not really in the mood for arguments. More so, he’s just gotten out of treatment and all he’s had is an egg. “You’ll drink it,” she informs him, putting the car in drive. “Maybe not now but eventually.” 

He grunts. Doubt that. If he’s going to manage to stomach anything, it’s not going to be that. Besides, he’d got plans: take a nap. That slowly goes down the drain. 

Emily turns up the radio, humming along to a song he doesn’t recognize. 

Turning his head, he watches her drive. He hasn’t told her yet but he’s very thankful she’s come back. Even if he’s slightly tainted the return with… She’s here taking over his life. Worming her way into his spare bedroom. Force-feeding him weird green smoothies. He doubts she’ll stop there. 

“Hotch?” He doesn’t wake up when she shuts the car off. From there on, she’s gentle. Careful as she extracts herself from the car. “Aaron,” she rubs his shoulder. 

He pulls in a small breath, turning slowly to her. 

When they left earlier he’d looked better. Better than now. 

“You fell asleep,” she informs him, backing up as he sits up. He has to use the seat to get there but he makes it happen. She waits back for him, letting him take his time getting out of the car. All while holding that damn smoothie she’s convinced she’s going to make him drink.

He’s rubbing the sleep from his eyes when his phone goes off in his pocket. She turns at the door, waiting. He motions her on with a wave, taking the call. “Agent Hotchner speaking.” 

She stops for a moment to watch him pull in the whole persona. Not Aaron who just fell asleep in the car but Hotch the rock. It’s sad, really, how quickly the one consumes the other. 

She’s reading on the couch when he comes in.

He doesn’t say anything as he slips past, going back towards his room. He comes right back out. The loosely buttoned flannel is forgotten, replaced by a suit across his thin shoulders. Once, those suits had pronounced the sharpness of his body. The way his shoulders sit strong and straight. Now, that jacket doesn’t even look like it belongs to him. 

“Where are you going?”

He only glances at her, ducking his head back to the task at hand-- putting on shoes. 

She gets up off the couch, flipping the book text down. “Aaron,” she comes around the side. “You can’t go out there.” To work. It’s not healthy to go out there. He had fallen asleep on the ride home, not even twenty minutes ago. He won’t manage out there.

He turns to her as she steps into the room, scowl in place and a look of indifference pulled between them. All the protection he can garner for himself. “It’s not up for debate,” he replies. As if this is out of his control. He just can’t help but think it would be easier this way. It would hurt less, dying out there. A coherent death. He’d feel it. Quick and overwhelming. 

But coherent. He’d know.

Not in a hospital. More machine than man. Unable to speak or too weak to think. 

It would be better to die a hero. 

“Aaron,” she calls, he’s just walking away. “You’re being unreasonable.” She wants to scream. To shout at him or grab him the collar of that oversized dress shirt and shake him. Force him to realize that he’s being stupid. Does he think she’s stupid? They both know this is self-destruction. Skipping treatment. Going into the field. All for this stupid image that he’s convinced himself is necessary. For who? Huh?

It’s better to suffer around people you love than to have them bury you. The only burden is the weight of your casket across their shoulders.

He turns, teeth clenched. Jaw set. “Am I?” he asks. His face has darkened, his cheekbones drawing his cheeks in. “I’m going,” he informs her, “regardless of whatever it is you have to say.” 

He won’t look at her. That’s how she knows that no matter how illogical he’s being, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Back turned to her, he stops for just a moment. He knows this isn’t what he should. That this is neither his best option nor the right choice. Still, he opens the door. Stepping out he turns his head, eyes cast to the side. “I--” he shakes his head, he doesn’t know.

Before he can shut the door she calls his name out, fear overriding the anger. “Aaron,” she clenches her fists at her side. “Please be safe.”

His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows thickly. Glancing at her, he nods his head. At least he has the decency not to lie to her. To pretend this is anything but foolish and a death wish. He shuts the door behind himself without another word. 

Leaving her standing there. 

Waiting.

She’ll still be waiting that night when Reid calls her. Incoherent. 

_“I-- I don’t know what’s wrong Emily! He won’t-- He’s bleeding and I--I… He said to call you.”_

She shouldn’t have let him leave.


	2. Chapter 2

__**Time and again boys are raised to be men  
Impatient they start, fearful at the end  
But here was a man mourning tomorrow  
He drank, but finally drowned in his sorrow**

_“I-- I don’t know what’s wrong Emily! He won’t-- He’s bleeding and I--I… He said to call you.”_

As frustrated as she is for being left at home, Penelope Garcia can understand why it isn’t necessary for her to come along for this excursion. Still, she can’t help but not like this one bit. Watching Derek put his things together, Garcia sits on the edge of his desk. Picking at her nails, her nerves are easy to pick up on. “Derek,” she asks softly. Waiting for him to stop what he’s doing and look up at her. “Please look out for Hotch, okay? I know you think he’s okay but…” 

Morgan sighs down at the floor. He knows something is wrong. For now, he’ll continue on indifferent because that’s easier and because what else is there to do? Until Hotch tells them what’s wrong, there’s nothing they can do. Nothing they can say. Morgan can only do what he knows: continue on. He steals files from Hotch’s pile and watches his back. 

Rubbing at his jaw, Morgan nods. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s afraid. “You know I will, baby girl.” Once, he’d made the mistake of making Hotch feel as though the two of them were incapable of a relationship. _“Wanting to hang out with you and needing you to lead this team are two very different things.”_ That was his mistake. His knife was buried in Hotch’s back. Never again. 

He would die for Hotch and he knows Hotch would too… that’s the scary part.

“Look at me,” he cups Garcia’s cheek in his hand. He looks into her eyes, smiling at the way she just melts into his palm. “Nothing is going to happen. Okay? I’ve got him. We’re going to be just fine.” 

Garcia nods her head but she can’t shake this feeling. The dragon that twists in the pit of her stomach is relentless. Taunting and reminding that even if something does go wrong, she won’t be there to do a thing. Waiting for the phone call. Too late to help. All she’ll get is an update-- is a member of her family laying cold in the morgue or getting a few stitches and a week’s worth of aches. 

She hates sending them off and Derek Morgan hates that he feels like he’s lying to her. 

Because he is. Not directly and against his will but a lie none-the-less. 

Profiling is the easy part. Morgan takes one last look at the board containing their preliminary ideas and the faces of their victims and shakes his head. For a moment, watching his team member’s backs takes the back burner. He’s not worried about them, he just needs to get out of this stuffy old precinct. “Coffee run,” he offers, tugging his jacket onto his arms. “What do you want?”

Reid perks up first, “where are you going?”

Sighing in anticipation for the ridiculously sugary and probably diabetes-inducing drink Reid’s going to force Morgan to order, he rolls his eyes but answers truthfully. “I’ll go to Starbucks.” Guessing at what the others want is a much simpler task. They’ll request what they always get. Rossi is partial to lattes. JJ likes the seasonal drinks. Garcia will give him something off the wall. Hotch always gets an Americano (because he has no taste buds).

“Wait--” he’s already halfway out the door by the time he processes what he’s being told. Not Reid’s caramel whipped creamed thing-- he knew that was coming. What’s only just now processing in his mind is that Hotch said he didn’t want any coffee. Trying and failing to hide his surprise back to his friend. “You don’t want anything? This coffee sucks ass, man. You’re not going to stomach any more of that shit.”

Now, Hotch is not entirely sure what’s wrong but he knows coffee isn’t going to help. At all. “I’m fine,” he defends without lifting his head from his files. “I just don’t want any coffee.”

Morgan raises an eyebrow, looking at Dave and JJ but both shrug. “Okay then.” It seems like a normal thing, maybe, outside of the BAU but the staple of every one of their diets is an unhealthy amount of caffeine. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He should have said something. 

Taking the time to pause, push further on the matter. To just ask-- _“Are you feeling okay?”_ Because the glare would have been worth it. He would have been able to piece something together. Get some sort of answer. Even if he had to come strained and profiled. 

In no rush to get back to the precinct and be sent back out to the field, Morgan takes his time getting the coffee. Going as far as sitting in the SUV in the precincts parking lot and enjoying a piece of banana bread in the silence of his own company. He loves the team. He really does but there’s only so much rambling and scowling he can put up with before he needs a break too. 

He can’t take too much time though, Reid’s surgery filled, cavity creating, whipped cream topped drink is melting all over the seat. That last thing Morgan needs is Hotch riding his ass about sticky leather seats. Which, of course, won’t be Reid’s drink’s fault but rather his. 

As he gets out of the car, juggling their drink orders, Morgan notes their second SUV is gone. Meaning either someone has found something or there’s been another body. For the sake of the headache, Morgan has only nursed back down to a dull twinge-- he’s really hoping for a complete ME report and a conversation with the medical examiner.

“Reid, come get your damn--” Morgan’s busy fusing with the whipped cream melting onto his hands. Whipping the sticky goop off on his pants he looks back up and cuts himself off. “What the hell happened?”

On the floor, head between his knees and a wad of uselessly blood-soaked tissues pressed to the nose, Hotch is laboriously breathing through his mouth. There’s blood pouring down his face, already having soaked through his white dress shirt and caked itself onto his hands. 

“I-- I don’t know what’s wrong Emily! He won’t-- He’s bleeding and I--I… He said to call you.” Reid’s kneeled down by his side, eyes wide as he looks up to find Morgan. “It won’t stop!” He moves his phone from where it’s tucked under his ear and shrugs hopelessly. “I-- I called Emily. He said-- He told me to call Emily!” His tone is urgent, pleading. Reid’s inability to aid in the situation has driven him to near tears and without Emily here, Morgan’s the first relief he’s seen since this whole mess started. 

Squatting down to access the damage, Morgan grimaces as he places a hand over Hotch’s. The blood, despite Hotch’s hold, is still pouring down between his hands. Creating a mess akin to crime scenes Morgan’s seen time and time again. “You’ve got Emily on the phone?” Morgan asks. He puts his hand between Hotch’s shoulders, shaking his head when he sees Reid’s covered in blood too. 

This is way too much blood for a nose bleed.

Reid nods, “ye-yeah.” He swallows thickly and offers Morgan the phone.

It’s slick with blood. Morgan holds it to his ear. “Hey princess,” he greets. He presses the phone to his ear using his shoulder. “Reid,” he motions towards the tables where their coffees sit forgotten. “Get me the napkins under the--” 

Reid stumbles to his feet quickly, holding up the brown napkins before Morgan can finish. 

“Yeah,” Morgan takes the napkins and presses them to Hotch’s bundle. Pressing his own hand around Hotch’s. “Emily, you there?”

“Yeah--” the other end of the phone is picking up static and the sound of moving around. Emily’s struggling to get shoes on, already trying to make her way out the door to leave starts heading their way. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s happening? Reid wasn’t making any sense.”

Morgan removes pressure for just a moment, cursing uselessly when all he sees is that the blood has made its way through the new napkins. “Dammit!” Morgan immediately regrets the outburst when Hotch jumps, flinches in his grasp. Morgan tries to reach out but Hotch turns his head, eyes pinched. 

Sighing, Morgan forces himself to take a moment. He has to stop. There’s way too much blood. Reid’s past the point of helping, the kid is anxiously rocking himself on his heels. Hotch is three shades too pale and clammy, he has to do something. 

“Alright.” Morgan pulls the phone from his shoulder. “Emily? Listen, I’m taking Hotch to the hospital right now. His nose is bleeding. I have no idea what’s wrong” Out of the corner of his eye he can see the immediate distress that washes over Reid. The kid hates hospitals. “We’re in Charlottesville, like two or three hours from Quantico.” Moving his body he prepares to haul Hotch up to his feet. “Do you know what this is? What to do?”

Emily stops. She considers her options here. She has an idea but cancer doesn’t typically cause nose bleeds… right? He’d been off earlier but he’d just gotten out of radiation therapy. That’s probably pretty draining. She won’t tell Hotch’s secret. He’d told her in confidence and she won’t betray that now. 

“No,” she answers, in half-honesty. “I’m heading your way right now, okay? Let me know whatever you find out.”

“Alright. Be careful.”

“Derek?”

Morgan pauses.

“He’s okay, isn’t he?”

Morgan glances at Hotch and then at Reid… “Just get over here, Em. We need you.” Ending the call, Morgan tosses Reid’s phone at him. Setting into the more taxing task at hand. 

Right. They’ve got this.

“Pretty boy,” he motions Reid over. “Get his other side.” Rubbing his hands together, Morgan prepares himself for what he can only assume is going to be a difficult tax. “Alright, Hotch. You with me?” He kneels down and waits for Hotch’s eyes to find him. Hotch gives him a little nod. “We’ve just got to get you to the car, okay?” 

Looking to Reid now he says, “we go on three. Together.” Given the amount of blood they’re sitting in-- enough to rival some crime scenes Morgan’s seen-- he doesn’t think getting Hotch to his feet is going to be a flawless exercise. 

“Ready?”

Hotch and Reid nod.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

What little of his blood that isn’t actively trying to exit his body through his nose, immediately leaves his head in a rush. Dizzy and now blinking rapidly to keep some semblance of control over his body, Hotch is standing on his feet. It doesn’t feel like it. 

For the most part, he’s really not.

Morgan’s got most of his weight. One hand molding their hips together, clutching at the fabric of Hotch’s pants. The pulling Hotch’s right arm over his shoulders. “Alright,” Morgan grunts, pushing out a breath. “It’s just a few feet,” he can see the door. It’s not that far. “Reid, get the door.”

Reid looks shocked-- stuck. Unsure if he’s supposed to listen or remain glued to Hotch’s side. 

“Reid. Go.”

Nodding Reid ducks, wiggling out from under Hotch’s other arm. Glancing back only once before going ahead of them. He hovers there, awkwardly. “Hotch?” Reid takes in the sight of his boss. His pale and sweaty face. The blood is thinner than it should be. It’s… weird. Thinner, Reid thinks, than what blood should be.

“Are you anemic?”

Morgan just shakes his head, scowling. “Now’s really not the time for twenty questions, kid.” 

Hotch’s dazed eyes find Reid’s, hardly slivers. His feet are hardly lifting from the ground as Morgan less than gracefully pulls him along. “No,” he replies from around his mound of tissues. Not that he knows of.

Reid tilts his head, “I think you might be.”

“We can worry about that later,” Morgan deflects. “ Door, Reid.” He can feel Hotch losing his footing. Feet shuffling across the carpet and side meaning heavier and heavier into Morgan. “Hey!” Morgan grunts when Hotch’s knees give out from underneath him

Reid jerks back, eyes wide. “Hotch?”

Morgan smacks blindly at Hotch’s face, trying to rouse him. “Hotch! Hey, man.” Hotch’s eyes flutter, uselessly darting as he struggles to remain conscious. “It’s just a nosebleed, you’re fine!” Grunting, Morgan pulls them both back up. His own knees shaking. “Come on. Come on!”

The whites of his showing through slivers, Hotch pulls in two quick hitches breathes. Body jerking as they prove too shallow. “Sorry,” he rasps, falling limply down. 

Reid shouts. Blinded, really, with fear and having no idea what it is that he’s supposed to do. He just stands there, frozen right where he is, watching Morgan fail to attempt to rouse Hotch. The urgency in the other man’s voice increasing. The desperation worsening.

“Someone call 911,” the Sheriff’s voice moves the room into action. 

Morgan pulls Hotch’s head into his lap, uselessly moving the lump of napkins back under Hotch’s nose. Failing to prevent the blood from spreading further. “Don’t,” he mumbles darkly. Stopping the Sheriff from reaching out and touching Hotch. “He’s fine.”

The Sheriff glances at Hotch and grimaces. That’s not true. “We’re getting him some help, alright?”

\-------------------------

Between Morgan’s coffee run and the nosebleed, JJ and Rossi had left to speak to the coroner. Her autopsy report was ready and what she’d found, as she told Hotch, there had been some interesting developments found on the body. The sort that Rossi was eager to report.

“Derek,” Rossi sandwiches his phone between shoulder and ear, clumsily trying to start the SUV. After watching him struggle for a moment, JJ takes the phone from him. Glancing over he reminds her, “make sure you tell him about the--” He stops, struck by the look of horror JJ has. “What?”

JJ nods her head as she listens to whatever it is Morgan’s saying. “Okay,” she manages. “No, we’re just leaving now--” she nods her head. “No, no we’ll be there in a second. I’ll tell Dave.” She glances at him, eyes shooting back to her lap. “Okay. I’ll see you in a minute.” Ending the call she sighs. She’s been publicly announcing awful news for years. She’s spoken about brutal murders committed against children. Rape. Murder. Incest. Yet… 

“Reid and Derek had to take Hotch to the hospital.” She hands Dave back his phone. “He passed out at the precinct. They had to call an ambulance. He’s getting checked out now but they won’t tell Reid or Morgan anything because you’re his proxy.”

Rossi struggles to take this news in. Hotch is in the hospital. Okay. 

Hotch has been acting weird. Rossi should have said something days ago. They all noticed. Why hadn’t they stopped him from coming on this case?

“Which hospital?”

The thing about hospitals is that they all look the same. 

The one that Rossi had been directed to after the explosion in New York looked exactly the same as the one that Emily directed him to when Foyet stabbed Hotch a year later in Virginia. The white walls are always suffocating. Bone-chillingly cold and unloving. The waiting room chairs are organized the same way and even the seats looked the same. 

The only difference is the desperation. 

Today, Spencer Reid sits with his knees tucked under his chin. Eyes vacantly cast to the floor. Likely disassociating to someplace safer than here. He’s prone to that level of destruction when things get tough. It’s enough to tell Rossi that whatever the genius saw had harmed him irreparably. 

Derek Morgan sits beside him. He’s bent over. His hand over his mouth and his elbow on his knee. The other leg bounces rapidly. He’s not pacing but Dave recognizes it won’t be much longer now until that chair can no longer contain Morgan. Then he’ll be walking laps and too anxious and worked up to properly talk. 

“How is he?” Rossi doesn’t waste a second. 

Reid doesn’t even blink.

Morgan stands and meets them a few feet from the shocked genius. “They took him,” Morgan tells him, with a confused shrug. “I don’t know anything, man. Hotch was-- He was unresponsive and then they took him back to another room and told us to wait here. Whatever it is they won’t tell me, they said they have to talk to you.” Morgan rubs at his hands, “that’s bad, isn’t it? They couldn’t just tell me so that’s bad.”

Dave settles a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. Honestly, he’s certain that’s bad. Even after Foyet, Dave was Hotch’s proxy but they’d still told Emily everything she’d wanted to know. They’d given her his chart and everything. “He’ll be fine,” Rossi assures. “Whatever this is,” he shakes his head, “he’ll be okay.”

All three jump as one of the big doors are thrown open. A doctor steps out. The same one that had talked to Morgan and Reid previously. 

“Go sit down,” Dave tells JJ and Morgan. “I’ll tell you what he says.” Dave steps to meet the man a few feet from the others.

“David Rossi?” the doctor presumes, offering his hand to be shaken. “Hi. I’m Dr. Davis and I’m Agent Hotchner’s doctor, this evening.” Tucking the agent’s chart under his arm he glances to the room full of agents still watching his every move. “Uh,” he’s certain he should probably put some more space between himself and them for the patient’s discretion but he’s, frankly, not got the time. “I need to do some tests. Blood work to make sure that Agent Hotchner’s cancer hasn’t further complicated his current situation.” Bring the chart around, paperwork already at the top, he points a pen to where he needs the other man to sign. When he looks up though, he realizes… “You didn’t know about the cancer, did you?”

David Rossi is frozen in shock. He can hardly manage to shake his head. No. No, he had most definitely not known about any cancer.

Sighing, Dr. Davis can feel an approaching headache forming at the base of his skull. “Agent Hotchner was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkins Lymphoma about--” He didn’t really look at the chart that long, okay? He doesn’t know all the details. “I have only notes,” he answers truthfully, “from his oncologist to go on. I’ve contacted his doctor and we’re consulting with his team on what to do but I assure you that Agent Hotchner is in the best hands.” 

Directing Rossi’s attention to the files in his hand, the doctor taps his pen against the board. “The first one,” he points to it. “Is just simple blood work. We’re going to send the results to his oncologist, Dr. Fitz. This is for his depleted platelets-- it’s an iron treatment for his deficiency. He’s anemic.” Fortunately, the doctor can see the compliance in the agent’s eyes. 

Dave nods his head and starts signing. 

“He’s groggy but was awake when I was doing a check-in a moment ago,” the doctor adds. “If you’d like, I can take one or two of you back. Just give the nurses ten or so minutes to let him get settled.”

Dave nods. 

He’s not there. He’s not-- He’s can’t-- David Rossi has already lost a child. It’s not an experience he wants to repeat. It’s not one he even considered having to experience the first time it happened. Having that baby placed in his arms, so fucking small. Kicking and screaming and James Rossi had fought until the bitter end. Dave had been there for it all. He’d watched his son die. 

And he… Oh God, he can’t do it again.

Morgan watches the doctor walk away, sending a tight-lipped smile and a nod their way. Looking back at Rossi, he sees the older man shaking. “Dave? He stands, glancing at the others. Morgan only just gets there in time to catch his friend. “Dave!” He shakes his head in shock, unsure of what to do. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

There’d been so much blood. Morgan had spent thirty minutes scrubbing it out from under his and Reid’s nails. Hotch hadn’t moved when the ambulance came to the precinct. He’d only really managed to open his eyes once, reacting to Reid’s shout of his name. But he can’t-- Nosebleeds don’t kill people. 

They don’t. … Right?

Wiping his eyes with both his hands, Rossi shakes his head. He can’t do this right now. “He’s--” Rossi stares down at the tile. He’s got cancer. Aaron Hotchner. The spunky ass recruit that Rossi has lovingly dotted on for years. The boy he treats like a son loves like a son. Cancer. 

Rossi is going to kill him. A decade-- No! _TWO_ decades and that little shit couldn’t tell him about this? “I’m going to kill him,” Rossi stands, using Morgan when his knees give a protest at the movement. He’s a little too old to be crouching on tiled floors.

And the anger and dramatization of his feeling that has him storming down that hall, on his own mission to find that damned boy-- melts the second that finds him. 

Propped up on pillows and watching the nurses behind heavily hooded eyes, Aaron Hotchner looks deathly pale and vulnerable. Nothing like the boy David Rossi found puking his dinner up by the side of the road. A little too soft around the edges and not yet accustomed to the sights of the job. Dave had loved that kid with all his heart and that kid had grown into a hard-headed idiot. And David Rossi still loves him all the same.

“Sir,” one of the nurses finally spots him. “You can’t be back here.” The nurse steps around but she’s stopped quickly.

“No,” Hotch croaks. “Dave can come,” he assures, raspily, lifting his hand and twisting from the nurse on his left side. 

Rossi steps in, only bothering with a glance at the nurse still trying to decide if he should be in here. He takes Hotch’s hand, glancing at the 

The doctor steps into the room a second later, glancing between his patient and the agent he hadn’t let back yet. Looking at Agent Hotchner’s firm grip on his guest, the doctor decides he’s not putting a fight up for this one. Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he is very aware of the timidly fearful look on his patient’s face. “I know you’re probably tired of being poked,” he admits. The nurses have had their fill, literally. “I just need one more test and I’ll leave you alone.”

An arterial blood gas.

Hotch already knows. It’s not his first and it’s probably not going to be his last. They have to check his heart. His father had cancer at forty-seven and died of a heart attack. Beaming radiation at his chest every day of the week isn’t good for his already predisposed grim outlook of a heart attack. 

“Flex your hand for me.”

Hotch turns his head away, eyes pinched shut as the doctor puts pressure against his ulnar artery. 

Dave watches in shock and horror as the doctor pressed the needle into Hotch’s wrist. 

Hotch bites down against a grunt of discomfort. It hurts. He squeezes Dave’s hand, closing his eyes so that he doesn’t cry. 

“Alright,” the doctor pulls the needle. “All done.”

Asshole. Hotch glares at the man until he leaves, not processing a single thing that he says. When the man finally leaves, Hotch sinks into the pillows behind him. Slowly finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. “You know?” he asks, softly.

Dave takes one look at him. Hotch’s head turned to him, eyes fighting him to stay open. “I know,” he whispers. He smiles sadly, more to himself than anything. Gently, he moves closer and works his hand through Hotch’s hair. Sighing when Hotch’s eyes sink, submitting to the comfort. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Get some rest.”

Sleep, Hotch thinks grimly. That’s all he’s good for these days. Always tired. But Dave stays and he finds it steadily harder to remain awake. Sleep can be good too. 

\-------------------------

Emily Prentiss arrives hours later. 

She looks first to the bed, looking for Hotch and too preoccupied to care about sweeping the whole room for other occupants. The thing about family is that there’s this strange connection. She can tell the difference between the way they walk. She knows that Reid takes his coffee with four sugars, four creamers but JJ takes hers with only two sugars and one creamer. That Morgan listens to Nas on the way home to cheer himself up and that Aaron Hotchner, for as long as she’s known him, always slept either on his left side or on his stomach.

The figure sleeping on the bed is not, nor could it ever be Hotch.

Soft, half-curled locks of hair are haloed out on the pillow. Light brown hair that lays in every direction. A soft purple sweater is just hardly visible from under the thin, nearly transparent, blanket that is pulled to the person’s chin. To Reid’s chin. 

Reid sleeps on his back.

The sight makes her smile. His long legs stretched out and hands clutching that blanket to his face. 

“He just fell asleep.”

She turns, arms crossed on her chest, and finds him watching her from a recliner on the other side of the room. She’s not sure how she missed him. Sitting there tucked away with a blanket of his own and way too many machines snaking in and out of his shirt. 

He turns his head to her, a silent will of which will break first. Will she flood the room? Shake him around, stuck between the fear his actions have caused or the anger she feels for his stupidity. Will she take her stand on this hill and decide that it’s not worthwhile? That he’s not worth all the hassle. 

“Well,” she looks back to Reid. He’s taking up only half the bed, pressed into one of the rails. “He’s never gotten enough sleep,” she says, smiling softly. It’s crazy how she’s known him since he was a kid. The thought makes her smile and, as gently as she can manage, she moves a strand of Reid’s hair from his face. Tucking it behind his ear. Though, she has not known him as long as Hotch, of course. It brings to question how Reid’s going to handle this-- “Have you told him? Have you told any of them?”

Sitting up causes his head to spin but he does it regardless. Leaning heavily on his left arm, he lowers his head as he closes his eyes. Breathing in and swallowing down against nausea. “Dave knows,” he manages, clenching his fist as his head pounds. They’ll all know soon. 

Blinking away the haze from his eyes, he sits up. Wincing when he can’t control his shivering, despite the blanket in his lap. “Jack is who I’m worried about,” he informs her, watching her for a reaction. She doesn’t give him anything. Just nods. “I have to tell him.” Leaning his head into his palm, he rubs at his temples. He’s stressed just thinking about it. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

Emily’s head snaps up, a tight frown on her lips. For just a split-second her body pulls taut. Her shoulders straightening and eyebrows furrowing like they always do when she’s about to argue with him. It’s gone just as quickly as he can place it. “No one deserves this,” she informs him. “Especially not you.”

Especially? He doesn’t know about that. Honestly, he’s not even sure if this isn’t _exactly_ what he deserves. Besides the moral grey of committing murder, Foyet’s and Haley’s deaths are a direct effect of his actions. His fault. He’d killed Emily too. If he were a better friend, a better boss she would have been able to trust him. If he’d been a better leader, she would have never felt the need to leave at all. 

But he had failed her. 

That’s why she left. That’s why she died. 

Maybe she can’t see it but it’s all he sees when he looks in the mirror. Someone who deserves to be punished for all the things he’s done. 

For the people he failed. 

For taking more than he gave. 

For existing in a capacity he wasn’t sorry enough for. 

“Did that scrawny little shit already get to your jello?”

He blinks stupidly as he’s pulled from his thoughts. Looking over at Emily Prentiss, he’s faced with yet another moment he’s so glad she’s here. She’s holding the lid of the lunch tray the nurse had brought in some hours ago. He hadn’t touched it then and he won’t now. Reid had inspected it and sheepishly inquired about the jello. Hotch had given it to him. How could he say no?

The indifference had paid off when Reid had smiled brightly and cupped the little cup in both his hands. 

“I gave it to him,” Hotch defends. 

Emily narrows her eyes at him, “of course you did.” She puts the lid back on the food and seems to have come to the end of her inspection of the room. He can’t tell if she’s approved or still mad he’s here in the first place. He hopes it’s not the latter. There are many more hospital visits in his future and if she’s tired of this place already he hates to imagine how the rest of this is going to play out. 

“You’ve always been a softy,” she mumbles, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. She pats Reid’s hand affectionately-- as if she isn’t in the same rough exterior that bleeds into parental instincts boat as him. He doesn’t deny it though. With a sigh, she tucks the strands of hair falling into her face back behind her ear. “How are you doing?” she asks, looking back up at him. 

Hotch isn’t a liar. The truth is just more than he wants to deal with right now. 

Darkly circled eyes raise to her’s, his mouth twisted down. Shoulder’s fallen. “Can we talk about anything else? Anything but this?” For the last twelve hours, all he’s heard about is cancer. It’s all he’s talked about. As if it was not already bad enough the shit is inside of him, spreading to his organs despite the radiation. He just… he’s so tired of cancer. 

She clicks her tongue, kicking her hanging legs out as she thinks. “I mean, we can talk about the weather,” she offers with a devious smirk. He can hear the snark about his age coming into this sooner than he’d like. She shrugs, “I’m still kind of attuned to London weather though. It’s rather warm over here. I forgot how unpredictable Virginia’s weather can be.”

He tilts his head to the left, lifting his lips in a smile he can’t help. In the time since she’d moved away, he’d only gone to visit her once. Between school and work, it’s pretty hard to secure that sort of trip but he’d managed it. Jack had a fantastic time. Hadn’t minded the constant dreary state of perpetual rain one bit but he’s always been a fan of the rain and storms. Emily, however, went around looking like a drowned rate and essentially dared him to make a comment about her hatred of the rain. 

She had looked rather harmless in her purple rain boots, he’d forgotten about that.

But even to a native Virginian, he can attest to the unpredictability of the weather. Three weeks ago the temperature refused to budge above forty-five degrees and now it’s sixty and sunny. In _December_. “Don’t worry,” he mumbles sarcastically. “In a few weeks, you’ll be wishing for this weather back.” 

January will hit and with it will come constant ice storms. It stresses him out just to think about it. Driving for treatments is going to dangerous2 with roads like that. The black ice that comes in patches and is so hard to see. 

“Doubt that,” Emily mumbles with an eye roll. 

He’s not sure what else to say and despite his insistence on a change of subject, he finds himself distracted. Even sitting here, watching Emily kick her legs like a child and hearing the steady breathes of Reid… There are other things he has to worry about. Jack. His treatment. 

Does he tell her about the chemo? 

“Knock, knock?” Dave is standing in the doorway and offers a small wave to their little group. “They’re letting you out,” Dave informs Hotch. “A nurse will be in and we’re good to take you home this afternoon. That is, of course, as long as you listen to your doctors and go home and rest.”

Hotch shakes his head. 

The nurse that comes in to untangle him from all the machines isn’t too sympathetic with her removal. 

Reid’s woken up by now, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sheepish that he’s been caught sleeping. 

Catching sight of the wheelchair being pushed his way Hotch shakes his head. That is not happening. “I have cancer,” he states dully. “I’m not paralyzed. I can _walk_ out.”

In all the time that David Rossi has known this man, it never fails to surprise him how youthfully childish he can be when putting his foot down. Except, he’s never won the battle of wheelchair escorts out of hospitals. Not once but he still tries every time

“Just get in the wheelchair,” Emily interjects before Rossi can say anything. “Do you have to be a stubborn asshole about everything?”

Yes. The answer is yes.

Hospital policy (and the fact that he wants out of here) wins and he lets Emily push him out. Dave meets them outside, pulling the car up to the curb for an easy and quick pick-up. 

“In,” Emily motions, but they’re a little hesitant as Hotch stands. Waiting for any indication that he’s not as ready as the hospital says he is. 

Sensing Hotch’s annoyance about getting into the backseat of the SUV, Dave taps the wheelchair against his legs. Earning him a heated quick glare but no words. No threat. Shaking his head, Rossi prods, “get in there slowpoke.”

“Do you treat all of your dates to this little number?” 

Rossi rolls his eyes but faces the nurse with a smile and a grateful nod of his head when she takes the wheelchair back. With a sigh, “well, only the ones with cute butts. So, you should be flattered.”

Emily chuckles and Reid curls his nose up, “ew.”

Shutting the door behind Hotch, Dave comes around and gets into the driver’s seat. “Buckle in, kiddos.” He turns the car on and looks back to make sure Reid and Hotch have both done as asked. “Let’s rollout.” Dave drops Reid off at the hotel and he, Emily, and Hotch start on their three-hour drive back to Quantico. 

Hotch falls asleep in the backseat. He’s completely unaware of the system that has been put into place. Whether he likes it or not, he’s got their support and they’re going to drag him through his treatment kicking screaming. They’re not ready to lose him. 

And of course, the fact that once Penelope Garcia gets her hands on him it’s still very unclear if she’s going to strangle him via a hug or her hands around his neck.


	3. I'm Treading For My life, Believe Me

_**Not knowing how to think  
I scream aloud, begin to sink  
My legs and arms are broken down  
With envy for the solid ground** _

There is not a sound. Not a shiver. The floorboards do not moan lowly. No hinge gives its creaking complaint. The disturbance is a felt one. Something she feels right where her fourth rib meets her sternum. It has no name. Calling it instinct is superstitious. Claiming it as training or intuition is childish. 

It has everything to do with love and fear. And love and fear alone.

“Aaron?” The comforter he seems to be forever tangled has been kicked away in his fitful sleep. In the low light of the room, the hallway light seeping in, she can see his heaving chest. As though he has run a great deal, not lying supine on his bed. “Aaron, can you hear me?” Despite the bitter scent of sweat, she can’t tell what it is that draws her deeper into the room.

Slowly, his dark eyes open, breathing rasping out as he opens his mouth to answer but no sound leaves his pale lips. 

Looking over her shoulder, only after looking and listening for a sign they’ve awoken Jack, does she enter the room. Shutting the door behind her, she stifles the room to darkness. She can’t even see the hand extended in front of her. Not that she needs it. The path of his room is simple. 

Two steps in there is an outfit shed by the dresser on her right side. The pant leg extends out and if she doesn’t lift her foot, she’ll trip. Three more steps in and she needs to extend her hand just a fraction to feel the cool wooden bed frame. There she can pivot herself with its aid. Step high over the sweatshirt on the floor and she’s good. Well, mostly. 

She gets tangled in the comforter he kicked off. 

“Em--” he coughs, letting out an achy moan. “Emily?”

She gets to his nightstand and leans heavily on the old wood, catching her breath. The damn blanket was like fighting an octopus. “Right here,” she promises, knocking all kinds of shit to the floor as she fights her way to the lamp. It comes on with a click and they both wince at its sharpness. She’s got her eyes closed, trying to allow her pupils some small reprieve, when his hand wraps around her forearm. Cold clammy fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Hotch?”

The soft hazel of his eyes is unfamiliar. “I want to go home,” he rasps softly. His chest shutters with the effort the simple request has taken. The tears in his eyes slide down his cheeks without the guilt. He strikes her. Not with his palm open and hands roughened by callouses. He does not hit her or cause her to draw back with his words. By the look in his eyes. The confusion. The pain.

“Aaron--” Once and only once does she consider trying to convince him that he is exactly where he craves to be. Mouth open, the words pushing at her tongue, she decides that will only hurt them both. Softening the look on her face, she crouches down by his side. Taking a seat on the edge of his bed. 

The rash on his chest has depended its angry red, it taunts her now as the glisten of his sweat across his pale skin. Every visit to the doctor promises that it’s not as bad as it looks. It causes him mild discomfort and nothing can be done. It is a product of the radiation. To heal the wound is futile. Stepping off a cliff to avoid a hill. 

“You’re feverish,” she notes, moving the back of her palm against his forehead. To her surprise, he doesn’t pull away from her touch. Not even as her fingers draw against the sharp peak of his cheek bones. He lays, compliant, eyes foggy but on her. With a fond sigh, she observes, “dehydrated. You didn’t drink the water I gave you.”

When he speaks, he sounds much more like himself. The tone costs him more than it's worth. “My throat hurts.” Which is an awful excuse but it’s the truth and she knows it’s just another part of normal life falling away from her grasp. Today it is just water but tomorrow it is the hospital. It’s the central line and the saline and the tube they’re going to place in his stomach because he’s reaching the point of inabilities. 

And it is never as simple as a sore throat. 

She’s tired of seeing his blood so casually wiped from his pale skin. The bags under his eyes deepened to caverns and the lakes of tears in his eyes. There is nothing she can do. The mass of cancer can be cut out of his flesh but the cells could still multiply. Quite simply, there is nothing she can do for him. Except--

“Stay.”

He mistakes her movement for the path to leave. She’s just aiming to pull the comforter back over him. 

“I--” They look at each other. She sees so much burning vulnerability. “I’ll stay,” she caves and with that promise she can reach down and pull the comforter back over his body. 

Already, his eyes are dropping shut. “You can--” he coughs, his whole body jarred by the movement. “You can sit, Emily. I can keep my hands to myself.” 

She rolls her eyes but sits down on the corner of the bed. She takes his hand, rubbing at his knuckles when he turns his head to cough. “Shut up,” comes her hesitation reply. It feels wrong, misplaces. She wants to slip into their innocent, normal tit-for-tat banter but he’s not up for it. It’s not what he needs or is even capable of. 

“Please don’t just sit there and stare at me,” he rasps. 

Her face flushes. She had been doing exactly that. “If I lay down, you better not try to cuddle me.”

He huffs at that but whatever he might have said is overshadowed by his deep, nasty sounding coughs. 

She reaches 

“Aaron?”

“Hmm?”

She gently moves her hand across the bed sheet until she finds his. Interlacing her fingers with his she manages, thickly, “please don’t die.” His head turns on his pillow and she can feel him looking at her but she keeps her eyes on the ceiling. After a long pause, her heart beating frantically the whole way, he simply squeezes her hand. Not a promise… just comfort. Sniffling she sits up and grabs some of the blanket, pulling it over her own bare legs. “Stop hogging the covers. You’re not the only who might want some.” 

As she settles down, turning her back to him, she closes her eyes. Feeling the hot stream of her tears falling over her face. The last thing she hears before she falls asleep is his hoarse voice, full of tears of his own. “I’m so sorry Emily.”

\-------------------------

“How are you?”

Radiation was early this morning. He’d been lying if he didn’t admit that he gave Emily hell about it. Which he does feel fairly guilty about but she got what she wanted to he’s not that sorry. For the first time, he let her come in with him. Mostly because he didn’t have the strength to get himself out of the car but if he doesn’t dwell on that thought too much then it’s okay. 

But he also knows that Emily told Garcia about this morning. Briefly, no doubt, about him being an absolute pain in the ass. Mostly how he’d let her tie his shoes. How he’d limped, leaning heavily against the wall to the bathroom and losing the meager bit of breakfast he had. Whatever she knows, she wears on her face. The worried crinkle between her brows. The downward quirk of her pink sparkling lips. 

She shouldn’t be here. 

Despite the ear protection Dave had spent so much time finding, his ears still ache from the rattling from the radiation machine. Every nerve in his body agitated by hot fire packers digging further and deeper into his brain. The dancers with their little tacs glued to their shoes traveling along his skin. To his legs and then up his arms. And, yet, he pushes on.

As confidently as he can manage, he forces himself to focus his eyes on Garcia. Smiling through the haggard, involuntary sway of his body. “I’m okay, Garcia. No need to worry.” 

But she can see how pale his skin has gotten over the last month. How the shadow of a beard across his cheeks makes him look sicker, weaker. She knows that he won’t like her attention but she craves for Aaron Hotchner. So, she finds herself looking at him longer, trying harder to see within him. To find her boss and not the ghost he’s left behind. “We… I love you, sir. You know that, right?” She hesitantly touches his hand and as much as she thought it would hurt to feel him recoil it hurts even worse when he doesn’t. 

But he’s here, isn’t he? Is it not just like her stupidly brave boss to keep trying, to keep pushing?

Hotch’s hand trembles where she’s captured it in her own and as self-conscious as that makes him feel… he can’t pull away. All these shields, blocades he’s built around himself have been his destruction. He’s pushed them away until they no longer let him near without armor of their own. Always prepared to enter the cave and find a beast. But Garcia, merciful Garcia, still just sees him. It terrifies him but he just wants someone to disregard his wishes. To throw caution to the wind and hug him. Touch him. 

“I know,” he manages. He smiles, clenching his teeth to refrain from showing or saying how much better he feels with her around. 

She stands, leaving his side. “Just making sure,” she confirms. She turns, her hand on his shoulder, as she takes in the state of his house. Empty. Emily has been diligent with cleaning up after them. Hotch, too, when he can manage to stand long enough to wash the dishes. 

She remembers, like a blow to the heart, that Emily has fallen behind on laundry. That had been the one chore Hotch was solidly keeping up on. Emily had seemed so positive about that, only a few weeks ago. Smiling as she reassured he was very adamant to let her anywhere near the laundry (and as she suspected, his underwear) so as long as he was managing to be his usual stubborn self things would be fine. They had been. But after the nose bleeds he’s not as strong. His appetite is gone and every week when they draw his blood the odds are slowly shifting out of his favor.

He’s anemic and they gave him a blood transfusion at the hospital after the nose bleed but it hasn’t helped. Now he takes iron supplements and a pill that smells horrible and tastes even worse. He can get over the pills. It’s just two more in the sea of things he takes. It’s the fact that he can’t lift anything. Years of training and rigorous training down the drain but his knees are like jelly and his arms like boiled noodles. 

On top of all that, this morning they talked about starting chemotherapy in addition to the radiation. His cells aren’t responding. So, Emily’s thoughts have been elsewhere. Not on the laundry steadily building unwashed. 

“I’m going to make myself useful,” she says, getting in a quick kiss before he can put up too much of a fight. She’s not sure if his lack of response is good or not. Either way, she tucks a blanket up around him. Smiling when he just looks up at her-- there’s a flash of Hotch in his exhausted eyes. He starts to fuss with her-- she doesn’t need to clean, that’s not why she’s here (which they really don’t need to argue about unless she wants to hash out how she’s really here to babysit him). 

But he just sinks into the pillow behind his head. No fight. 

“Please tell me if you need help,” she says as she walks away. He hums something under his breath but she knows he won’t. She’ll just have to listen for him. 

The laundry really isn’t that bad.

Emily’s room is a mess but Emily is a bit of a mess herself so it’s not that surprising. She picks up minimally. Moving anything around too much will just make Emily flustered to have been caught. So, she just picks up the towels she sees and a few pairs of shirts and pants she knows Emily likes the most and heads to the laundry room. The washing machine and dryer are down the hall, pushed aside in a closet like space. 

Tossing in what she’s gathered she goes back to Emily’s room-- she’s just wasting time so she doesn’t have to go into Hotch’s room. Picking up a discarded glass of water and a few water bottles. She makes note that if Emily isn’t back in time to throw their sheets and bed sets in the washing machine. It’s always nice to have clean bedsheets.

Looking at Emily’s room she realizes she has to venture to Hotch’s room now. 

She comes to linger in the living room. “You doing okay?” She doesn't get a response but she can’t really see him so she moves closer. One of his legs is drawn up, resting against the couch and the other stretched out and over the arm of the couch. When she’d left him he’d still been sitting up, fighting to stay alert through their short conversation. It’s… nice to see him comfortable. 

Without thinking, she reaches down and moves her hand through his hair. Trying her best not to react to the amount of grey she sees. He moves, shifting his face further into the couch. She fears she’s woken him but his eyelashes flutter for only a moment before he sighs and stills once again. 

Sighing, she leaves him once again. Blindly hoping he’ll sleep for a while if she doesn’t bother him. 

His room is… exactly as she expects it to be and, yet, not. 

His bedspread is a dark green color, nearly emerald and surely something Jessica or one of the other’s picked out. There are pieces of him thrown through-out the room with the finest touches of someone else left behind. For example, the books that litter every surface is him. From his nightstand, to his dresser, to a few stacked on the floor. The nightstands are old and she feels a little sore work itself into her throat at the possibility that they are a set and were probably bought for him and Haley. 

And now there’s only him. 

There is a stuffed elephant and blanket on the floor on the other side of the bed. She wonders how frequently Jack sleeps with him. Probably more than normal now. 

His room is neat. She tucks his comforter back where it should be. Placing a piece of paper in the book he’d left face down. There’s a single sock with colorful, swirling patterns. A shirt that looks very well loved tucked inside of a sweater of equal wear and tear. Clothes and homely things. Hotch things. 

From down the hall she hears his muffled coughs and something hard hitting the wall.

“Sir!” She hurries from his room, letting the clothes in her hand hit the floor. It’s not hard to find him. His house has a familiar, simple layout. “Are you okay?” He’s standing in the hall, facing her. Shoulder pulled in, left arm around his chest, and the right blindly leading him along.

He nods, muffling his bone rattling coughs into his elbow. “Just…” he shakes his head. “Going to the bathroom.” 

She looks over her shoulder, his room and bathroom are only a few steps away but… He doesn’t look like he’s going to get there without a little help. “Could…” she chews her lips into her mouth. “Would it be okay I help-- If you just leaned on me, a little bit? For my sanity?”

He nods, simply going where she moves him. It’s not hard to slip under him. Without heels, his height advantage is much more apparent. She looks down at the floor as she works his arm over her shoulders, smiling at the sight of his socks. Her own don’t match-- a homage to Reid but also because she knows it, secretly, drives Hotch crazy. But he’s wearing a pair of polka dot socks. Each one an extreme loud variation of every color you can think of.

“Nice socks, sir!” 

It distracts him for a moment from the humiliation of needing both her and the wall to walk down the hall. He looks down at his socks-- socks that he and Emily had fought long and hard about this morning. He didn’t want to wear them. He’d needed normalcy. Craved it. He wanted plain black socks that would go unnoticed. But she had won and everyone saw him in his boxers and stupidly bright socks. It had put smiles on their faces too. Even Emily’s, though, she had tried to hide it behind her book. 

“Emily’s doing,” he reassures her. 

They can’t fit shoulder-to-shoulder into the room so she lets him lean against the doorframe and manage it on his own. Following closely behind. “Oh, of course,” she says smiling now she’s behind him and he can't see. Though, as soon as she’s done it she wishes he would see. To see her smile and know it’s at his expense and give her one of those scowls that have always just made her love him a little more. 

But instead she sits on the corner of his bed and closes her eyes. Wincing and flinching as he gets sick. 

Emily had been so… _afraid_ when she left. Garcia hadn’t understood why. Even when the information Emily was throwing at her-- hurling words, meaningless words. Now… Now Garcia is cursed with Emily's same burden of knowing. 

It had all come so quickly-- that the nose bleed had been because he was anemic and that they can’t get his red blood cell count back up. “Not to fret”, Emily had said thickly with sarcasm, his white blood cells are through the rough and the product of much anxiety. That the awful cough he has is from Radiation Pneumonitis and “not to worry” he’s on steroids that make him incredibly nauseous and a complete ass. The best part? It can scar his lungs!

All this information had come so quickly that Garcia hadn’t processed any of it. 

Dave had called Garcia early this morning and asked if she needed anything to do. Normally, when he asks that sort of thing, he’s asking her over to do the grunt work of cooking-- rolling breads or kneading dough-- but today when she’d happily agreed he’d had something else in mind. 

So, today, while Emily goes with Dave for a long lunch she’s staying with Hotch. 

The original plan was just to leave him by himself. Dave had assumed that would be alright. Afterall, two days ago when Dave had last seen him, Hotch was very himself. Stubborn and grouchy when they tried to help him do anything-- even the normal sorts of things you do for people: hold the door, pass them a plate, ask if they want anything when you go to get yourself something, etc. 

Having to explain how she couldn’t simply leave Hotch had… broken Emily just a little more. Keeping herself calm, collected as she explained that she was going out with Dave for a while and she’d make sure to bring him something back. Coffee or soup (anything so long as he’d agree to eat). She had cried as soon as she stood to walk to her room, lower lip quivering at just how easily he’d caved. He’d protested everything she did all morning and now just… submits. She’d sobbed in the shower. 

He annoys her to no end. Her closest friend, the man she’d left behind to search for something more in London, was a basket case. Do not mistake that. Aaron Hotchner has to do everything himself. Independence is very important to him and she’s being forced to watch him give in. Too tired to fight. 

Garcia had arrived a little sooner than expected and Emily had opened the door in a towel, her mascara from that morning smudged under her eyes. Before she could get out an apology, Garcia had already assured her she had plenty of time and that Garcia would go back out and tell Dave to cut the car and come in for a moment.

And Hotch… 

He’d been asleep on the couch. Sitting up, nestled into the corner where Emily had left him.

“Hey, Pen?”

Garcia hadn’t even realized she’d been staring.

“He’s got a heating pad tucked against his side, will you warm it up?”

And she’d learned Hotch is prone to chills. That along with nine awful scars, Foyet had damaged his body's ability to regulate temperature and that radiation is being a bitch. So to ease the ache in his side, where Foyet had nicked a rib that won’t ever really heal, Emily just keeps a heating pad around. It keeps him warm. 

The beast of knowledge. 

“Garcia?”

She hates him. For a moment. Anger and impatient it eats her alive and that’s such an awful thing to have to feel about someone you love. Why can’t he be stronger? It leaves her body in a choked sound. How could she even let herself feel such contempt for the very man who always prides her for her brightness? Loves her no matter how much trouble she drags up? Goes out of his way to remind her to always be her bright silly self?

She stands from his bed and opens the bathroom door. 

He looks ashamed and she hates that. 

“Have I ever told you about the time Reid and I broke a coffee pot and hid it from you for a month?” she asks before he can apologize. 

His Adam's apple bobs as he looks up at her. He’s still curled into himself, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. He feels weak, useless. He couldn't even find the strength to stand and pee. Then, on top of it all, she’d been right there on the other side of the door as he vomited. By now, this is not the first apology he’s been beaten to. Emily has this infallible way of sensing them coming and quickly changes the subject to something else. 

It’s… strange to see Garica practice it too.

“Please tell me that was far too long ago to be worth fussing with you over?” he asks, trembling as he accepts the hand she offers. 

She smiles and tuckers herself back against him, wrapping her arm around his hips. “Oh it was a while ago,” she assures him. “Like… Gideon long ago. He was just a baby--” she keeps talking no matter what. When he whispers that he needs a break at the doorway, a whole two steps later. Tells him how terrified they’d all been of him at some point in time. How that’s all rather silly because Aaron Hotchner is nothing but a big softy. And, believe it or not, it has always been Derek Morgan breaking that secret to the rookies. That he’s not as big and tough as he looks. That a good, warm batch of snickerdoodles will melt his big icy heart so quickly--

“How many people did you tell that to?” he asks. 

She shrugs, only the people that really needed it. “Do I have to give you a number if I make you some right now?”

He considers her offer. His stomach has settled a little and the smell alone would be divine. Plus, Emily had said he could pick dinner… what’s the possibility that she would cave to just letting him eat a cookie or two? He smiles, “I’d consider adequate reparation.”

“Wanna help?”

His smile falters just a bit. He can’t stand for that long and--

“We can make them at the table,” she adds, hastily. 

And… he nods. Okay. 

That’s how Dave and Emily find them an hour later.

Hotch is covered in flour and Garcia too. A good proper mess. 

He’s wrapped in a blanket, the one from the couch, and leaning heavily on the arm propped up on the table. Smiling, content, as Garcia checks the cookies and reassures him that they need only a little bit longer. So that they come out right as the bottom is browning but not brown. ANd he nods his head like he understands when she says the point is to let them finish baking on the pan outside of the oven. That’s the secret to soft cookies. 

Which, to him, just sounds like she’s saying she's going to feed slightly undercooked cookies but he’s eaten cookie dough raw for years. He’s never had salmonella but he did get cancer so obviously someone wasn’t warning him about the right things. 

“What in the world did you two get into?”

“Cookies!” Garcia holds open the oven to show them. “If you wait just a moment they will be ready!” She places the dirty dishes into the sink. Throwing some water over them to make it easier to wash the dough off. 

Emily raises an eyebrow at Hotch and he shrugs. She’s amused by the sight of him covered in flour and what more is to add but a submissive shrug. What can he say except he’s a softy who has always lacked the ability to tell them no?

“You didn’t let Hotch do the measuring did you?” Dave asks, stepping in and inspecting the damage done to the kitchen. Under his breath he continues, “you can tell he’s never been a math man. I’m convinced he doesn’t understand fractions.” Dave has cooked with him too many times. Hotch has never once successfully measured everything right in any dish. The amount of times one fourth has been mistaken as a half or an eighth of something rounded up to a third… it’s crazy. 

Garcia glances at Hotch and he already knows exactly where she’d going-- “Well,” she admits, “I let him put the cinnamon in--”

Hotch groans from the table, a dramatic sigh as he closes his eyes and admits defeat. 

“It wasn’t his fault!” It was. “There might just be a little bit too much cinnamon. It’s not a big deal!”

Aaron Hotchner brought to his knees by fractions. 

\-------------------------

When Hotch was in the second grade he got chickenpox from his next-door neighbor Michael. A very common thing given the time and the general mindset of “chickenpox parties”. It had been awful and itchy. His brain so ravished by the fever that he doesn’t remember a whole lot about the experience. Just that it had begun as a patch of dry skin under his right arm, perfectly wedged between two of his protruding ribs. That week of horrible fever and endless itching is the only time Hotch can ever recall his father being gentle. 

He’d awoken once during that week, just after four and when his father typically arrived home, to the door shutting softly. His mother whispering to gather his father’s attention and diverge the man away from Hotch. Who, thanks to itching, had only just managed to fall asleep. 

Halfway up the stairs, Hotch can remember waking up in his father’s arms. The man had shushed him softly, rocking him the way you might a child until Hotch had laid his head against his father’s chest and gone back to sleep. The gentleness of that action has haunted Hotch for years. Something he thinks about occasionally. Trying and failing to wrap his mind around something so out of character. So bizarre. 

“Daddy,” Jack whines, he twists in his father’s lap. “You’re not watching, look!” His little finger demands Hotch’s attention, pointing to the TV. “Did you see it?” Jacks asks, sitting up to gauge Hotch’s reaction. “It was amazing, huh?”

Knowing his son, Hotch does try and get the boy out of the house as much as possible. Which means that lazy nights come far and rare in between. If he can, Hotch likes to take him to the park, museums, aquariums. Anything to keep his little mind crazed by the ideas of the world around him and actively engaged. Today… is not one of those days. There hasn’t been a lot of those days recently.

_“The cancer is spreading--”_

There’s a certain understandable science to the way that chickenpox works. They actually follow a pattern on the body when they spread. Hotch’s had curled from his left side to his right, working in the grooves of his ribs, and up his sternum.

A very similar pattern to the cancer spreading in his body. 

Radiation is no longer enough. 

He has two rounds of chemo and spends a lot of time thinking about what comes next. He’s going to get sicker. Weaker. Probably lose his hair. What will really be left of him when all is said and done?

Outside the rain comes down in buckets, thunder shaking the earth, but there’s nothing to the peace inside. Emily had gone around lighting candles, trying to soothe Jack in preparation for if the storm knocks out the electricity. Even if she’d managed to annoy him with her fluttering about, she’d been gentle and understanding. Making sure his shirt was buttoned to hide the deeply irritated skin on his chest. 

She’s stronger than he is. 

They are all. 

“Asland,” Jack mumbles in amazement. He’s settled back down in Hotch’s lap, head on his thigh so Hotch can mindlessly play with his hair. Hotch can’t follow the plot of the simple movie but he’s seen it enough times to hum and mumble responses to Jack’s questions.

The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s Jack’s new favorite thing.

They’ve probably watched it now at least a dozen times. 

Emily’s started having dreams about the movie. 

No matter how many times he requests it though, she’ll still play it and Hotch will sit down and let Jack explain the plot again. Everytime, it ends with tears. 

“I don’t understand why he has to leave,” Jack whimpers. 

Hotch is struggling to fight with consciousness. Radiation leaves him haggard. Limbs seemingly attached by measly strings and joints that buckle with minimal weight. He’s got a rash up his chest that itches and burns a lot like that chickenpox rash. It’s normal, he’s assured, and they give him ointment to keep on it. Not to clear it up but rather to keep it from getting infected. Which… seems so practical if not normal. Mundane, really. 

“Who?” Hotch rasps, forcing his eyes back open to squint at the TV. 

Jack looks up at his father, tears streaming down his face. “Asland.” Over the course of the last few months, of course Jack can tell his father isn’t well. Everyone treats Jack like a thoughtless child, and he is child, but he’s not stupid. He knows why he has to sleep at Jessica’s and why, no matter how much Emily and Hotch make a point to only see him on Hotch’s “good” days, that his father is slowly withering away. 

The thigh under Jack’s head used to be bigger. Tense with muscles not thin, almost to the bone. His father seemed to loom, towering over everything. Jack had thought him a king, a knight, a hero. Someone who, through the aches pains of it all rises triumphant and reigns on. Because his father has always been the best kind of person. Strong, vigilant, and forgiving. Surely… that would offer some forgiveness, no? An extra life in the bonus round or a break. 

Hotch swallows thickly around the nausea knotting up in his throat. “Asland,” he repeats with a sigh. Right. Asland dies. They’re passed that point but he does die. For the greater good, a strategic move, but the sacrificial play none-the-less. “Sometimes,” Hotch lifts his head. “He was saving the other’s, Jack. He sacrificed himself.” He’s too tired to explain how the book was just a huge religious metaphor. “Sometimes people have to leave.”

Jack sniffles and wraps himself around Hotch’s stomach, burying his head closer. “Why?” he asks miserably.

Hotch doesn’t know. It’s never what you want but he doesn’t want to tell Jack about all of that. How at one point Jack and Haley had been the ones to leave Hotch reeling with that same question, despite logic dictating a clear answer. That Emily had done the same thing to him multiple times. Everyone on the team, really. He’s probably done it to them. If not already, then soon. 

“I don’t know, buddy,” Hotch shakes his head. “I really don’t.” Jack nods his head, crying softly against Hotch. Hotch starts to rub Jack’s back, despite the ache in his limbs. “Listen…” Hotch clears his throat and Jack senses the turn in conversation. Jack sits up, looking, searching in Hotch’s eyes as he sniffles and wipes his face with the back of his hands. “I have to… We have to talk about something, buddy. About what’s been going on.”

Emily sits in the guest room and tries her best not to think about what’s going on in the living room. It was only a matter of time but… she couldn’t help but think maybe they could fix all this. It must be a matter of faulty testing. Surely, that must be the case. Hadn’t they already been through enough? Have they not lost enough?

Jessica sends her a text, Hotch isn’t answering his own phone. 

Emily leaves her room, leaning out first just to see if they’re still talking. They’re not. The TV has been turned off, no sound. 

Jack is curled into his father, clutching Hotch’s t-shirt in his little fist. Despite the dried tear tracks on his face, the boy looks at peace. His head tucked under Hotch’s chin and arms holding on tight, Hotch won’t be able to move without Jack noticing. Understandably, Jack has some apprehensions about his father leaving his sight. 

“How’d he take the news,” Jessica asks. Her anger has melted, leaving her wilted in a puddle of emotions that she doesn’t even know where to begin to deal with. “I can’t--” she shakes her head. “I just can’t imagine it,” she whispers, glancing at Emily. “He’s so young,” she brushes her tears from her cheeks. “He can’t lose Aaron, too.”

She nods her head, she’s afraid to lose him as well. To be a child, though, living this as a reality that at any moment you might become an orphan… Jack’s only a child. He’s not even ten yet. What will he have to cling to? The cold nights come frequently and he’ll be alone. Surrounded by people but alone. 

In London, there wasn’t a single moment she could step out and not get lost in crowds. It was the safest way to avoid detection. In those days, she’d clung to online Scrabble and read and rereading the letter Hotch had written her before she’d left. It was in the file with the other identities and money. While it had not been a technical element to the FBI’s idea of “everything” she might need it kept her alive. 

On those cold night’s she’d curl into herself with her heating pad pressed against those old wounds and read his letter. Fingers ghosting over the ink and eyes taking in every detail. Where his hand wavered writing about Reid failing to cope. The stain of a tear beside Jack's name. Her favorite passage: 

_“I believe Ashley will try to leave the unit the next chance that she gets. You were her mentor and I’m afraid I have not offered her too much in claims to stake here. A part of me is partial to her staying. You were her mentor and she reflects that in the strangest moments. I hope she stays, I indulge myself in her rebellions against me. I think it reminds me of you.”_

It never failed to make her smile. Take her back to the nights she’d drive home in a fit of rage or have arguments with her imaginations version of him in the shower. Cursing like a sailor but telling him how she really felt. 

What will Jack cling to when Hotch is not here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments always help encourage me to take on the beast that is the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> Bet you weren't expecting that (like I was going to let you off that easy on the first chapter)


End file.
